Hidden treasures discovered while digging through Frank Moore's huge archives.

Category: Paintings (page 2 of 3)

Eat Your Heart Out

December 2011

I have always had a rich full fun life.
Everything comes easy to me.
I don’t care about being
Respectable
or so “successful”,
or acceptable
beyond this inner flesh.

I surrender to play and to life.
Everything comes so far
into juicy bits
of extraordinary supernatural modality
of relationship dynamics upon my word.

I know this is not what to say
if you want to be included in
the addressing Fields
of dazzling whiteness
over oils of press and applause.

They want victims
suffering against overwhelming odds
of the temptation
to editorialize
defeat to survive barely,
waiting to take possession
of these annoying
medical monsters of yokes
of repression…

A special freak
who came to replace
the control box
by profound attention
and ordeal of extraordinary dimensions
bearing upon big terms of
keeping with heavy leaden gray deceptive dawn
between the tempest
and this dreadful nightmare of repression.

Of course you can’t do it,
they say.

He
[me]
is special
with courage,
strength surmounted all obstacles
being mauled by isolation
resulting from between physical problems…
And abilities of luck…
All of which you
and most people
unhappy don’t have.

He
[me]
is special exception
that proves the extreme point of
hopelessness,
helplessness
appalling disaster
which imprison everybody
without any possible alternatives.

They push this shit!

I am always able to handle anything,
having fun
in the freedom
of not knowing
what is impossible.

My dreams are melting
into juicy molten
every day activities just as
people who thought I was Jewish!

I surrender to play and to life.

Everything comes so easy!

Yes, it is hard work sometimes.

But I have come out

of the extreme edge
of things
in my wheelchair
addressing similar circumstances.

Escape from whatever
between us and fun!

They want you to think
you got it
better than me,
somebody,
anybody!

You ain’t got shit!

But at least you ain’t
a victim
of cerebral palsy for life,
suffering with cerebral palsy.

At least you ain’t confined to a wheelchair!

At least you can walk,
talk,
feed yourself,
wipe your own asshole
in the way God tends you to do!

At least you can play football
until you break your neck
playing football!
Then…

Oh, well…

At least
you ain’t
a nigger
or a woman,
or a fag!

Reporters scramble everything up.

They don’t use their souls,
their formidable pricking eyes.

They see a wheelchair
and they write
suffering victim
of cerebral palsy
confined to a wheelchair
and is ninety eight percent disabled
with no body control…

Oh yes he saw a murder!

Reporters are brainwashed.

They have only filter tip eyes!

They see me dancing,
playing piano
smothering the piece
of pounding
lustily on the keys
with vehemence and whatever else,
painting those unknown sights
in oils by Jackson Pollock physical ritualism
of direct engagement
with my whole body control of the paint
with my head,
seeing me
feeling up
right up
her inner flesh with style and aim…

And they conclude
and report
I am paralyzed,
stiffened under the bottom
of no movements
or control
or bodily feelings
and am
ninety eight percent disabled,
helpless,
vulnerable,
hopeless fizzle.
And you depend upon them
for the clear ultimate vision
of direct experiencing
of observation of objectivity!

I suppose
I could even paint
if I was Jewish paralyzed.

But I would have to come up
with a difficult style and techniques
which involve the necessity
of deferring to explore
my luck
and whatever
between physical touch
and the one more reckless effort
to free any particular color.

But the brainwashed plot
is so complete
that some playmates
who had romp with me
flexuosity
and yum
yum
yum
have then bought
that empty press surrebuttal
of my Body of Christ.

I told you so, folks.

I obviously wasn’t meant
for the control
of what is possible!

Poetry of truffles
and Champagne
and yum
yum of philosophy,
humor among various gangland serfs
and behind the curtain of fog
and romantic shit
about how boring it
was to build
upon communicating
even before speaking.

The margins exclude
almost entirely most of everything
which is noncommercial,
uncensored,
unconscious,
unexpected
original Files
under the command of Bruni d’Entrecasteaux,
ignoring such bestial-looking creatures
like you and me.

Also he gave me shit
about getting deeper
into the ultimate midst
of the arousing desire
of magical colors
disappeared from humanity
and love
with wide open legs
thrust into bed
after eating
the contents of folly!

But wisdom
which may be able to procure fresh meat
for everybody here
is what I am looking for!


From the book, Skin Passion by Frank Moore:
https://www.eroplay.com/skinpassion/index.html

Front cover of the book Skin Passion, featuring a detail of Frank’s digital painting “Toni”.

Falling Into Skin

by Frank Moore, Thursday, January 10, 2002

Lying here together
Just holding each other
Small, warm,
Smelling each other
Breathing each other in
Breathing life in
Breathing everything in
Taking everything into our bodies
Our body
Breathing life,
All life in, deeply
To our core,
Then breathing pleasure out,
All warmed up,
Breathing warm pleasure
In all life everywhere,
Watering life,
Growing stronger, freer
With every deep breath
Taking EVERYTHING in
Transforming transmuting everything
Into our rose-skin reality
Falling falling falling
Masks falling away
Who we pictured ourselves
Falling away
Just surrender into each other,
Into egoless self within us combined,
Without fear
Trusting the core within us
Falling
Skin melting
Nerve-endings pull us in
From within
Rich blood rushes in,
Washing us from within,
Tides within between us
Rocking rubbing on each other
In the sea of skin
Everywhere surrounding us,
Enveloping us
You lay here, me in your mouth
Not going anywhere
Just slight movement
To keep arouse pleasure alive
Beyond time
Before separation,
Before birth and death
A calm excitement
Of being together
Being within,
Not being between

There is a draining,
A releasing of surface tension
Skin pales
As everything flows deeper
To the core
Everything gets slower,
Warm cool
Beats melt together
Warm wax colors flow in veins
We get too small,
We become invisible
Rubbing rocking me
From your belly button
Downward
In between
Moist
Absorbing everything
Into our grooved smallness
Into the life code of change
Where we play
Unseen, unknown
Rocking small, pale
Falling
Without fear
Into the cool tickling grass
Sinking into cool slippery mud
Getting dirty
Falling,
Following the roots
Downward into cracks
In hard cold rocks
Breaking them open
Revealing hidden meanings
Breaking through to underground ocean
Of dark invisible matter,
Warm satin which seeks out
All space,
Seeks out all skin,
Becoming/enfolding our body
Filling everything
So small
That we plunge into the molten core,
Into subatomic center beyond space
Into solar explosion deep
in the universal everywhere
breathing spiraling warm change
in and out deeply
as we lie here
smelling the sweet sweat
of our very human bodies

“Linda and Frank”, digital painting, 2008 by Frank Moore

From the book, Skin Passion: poems and paintings by Frank Moore.

Family Friendly Poetry Reading

by Frank Moore, Saturday, April 06, 2002


A family friendly poetry reading?
Really?
Do you mean like READERS’ DIGEST?
MMMM…
I suppose some poets would go along with it…
The kind in READERS’ DIGEST
The kind who don’t see
Don’t mind
The command
For “self” censorship
Tucked neatly in the warmly caramel apple
Phrase
Of FAMILY FRIENDLY
There ain’t no “self” censorship
You are censoring art,
Words,
Intensity,
Truths,
The Audience
Down into nice mellow
Fascism

I suppose some are willing to accept this….
The kind who don’t question
Questions like
Which family?
It definitely ain’t my family
Not any of the expanding rings
Of my family
In fact
It is down right hostile
To my human tribal family
Which teaches our kids
How to use words
To communicate with all kinds of people
In all kinds of contexts
Openly
Deeply
Freely
Exploring all life
With a passionate honesty,
Sitting together
In the yummy smelling kitchen
Of Life
Sitting together
Around the tribal fires
Generations sitting together
Passing the talking stick around
Telling their stories
Revealing their desires and fears,
Wisdom and folly
Exploring myths…
Listening and telling
Into the center of respect and acceptance…
All the family listening
All tell
In their own ways…
Silly little sister
Wise grandma
Hot angry brother
Mother finding new words
Dad listening to family voices…
All beyond taboos
In this sacred ritual of telling.

I don’t really know what to make of this
Hostile FAMILY FRIENDLY…
Ok,
I do.
This is making poetry,
All art,
Into a hallmark lapdog
Of the brainwashing “socialization”
Of little lily and billy
Reinforcing SCHOOL/CHURCH/CORPORATE shallow
Dogma,
Using us poets
To be the shallow virus dogma carriers,
Thinking
FAMILY FRIENDLY can ever be
Anything but enforced shallow reality
On everyone

Sure,
When I read at schools
I play by THE RULES
Not because of the kids

But to get into the brainwashing camps
To slip the kids
A subversive potion of
Words/ideas/images

But shoot me
If I ever read at a FAMILY/KIDS FRIENDLY POETRY READING…
No…
Shoot the fascist’s parents!

Think fast!
A loving couple lovingly f…

In your head,
What did you hear for F?

Did I just cross the line?

Hope so!


“Innocent”, oil on canvas, 36” x 36”, 1981 by Frank Moore
“Trixie”, oil on canvas, 36” x 36”, 1979 by Frank Moore
“Superman”, oil on canvas, 35” x 68”, 1976

From the book, Skin Passion: Poems and Paintings by Frank Moore.

Just Between Us

by Frank Moore, Wednesday, December 12, 2001

We enter the magic cave
Of play and healing,
Shedding our fiction characters
We use outside,
Ego masks, skin tight,
Limiting….limiting the expanding.
Those masks will change
When we put them back on,
Softening to fit our new bodies, new faces…
Later.

Here we are
More than ourselves
More of ourself
Expanding
Expanding into one another
Rubbing skin
Friction of pleasure
Falling into the in-between
Surrender to the falling
Out of time and space,
Surrendering into discomfort
Of strangeness which contains
A strange comfort of remembering
The body and soul

Falling into the in-between,
Surrendering into the trance
Pleasure friction of creation
Rubbing dead skin into each other,
Aroused and excited,
Going into each other,
Taking each other in,
There is no THE OTHER,
No IN-BETWEEN.
Breathing each other deeply,
Smelling and tasting,
Licking and kissing,
Prickly state of inter-penetration,
Nerves connected
In the skin,
Melt bodies together,
Removes the lies of separation,
Hearts beat together strong relax,
Rich red blood flows deep.

We rock calm deep contained within each other
Within the combined body
Deep pleasure flows over us
Washing from deep within.

We have been here before,
Being contained within everything,
Enveloping everything within.
Lying extended within our combined body,
Combined self/soul,
relaxed, enjoying being within,
Sucking aroused pleasure up
As a tide of change,
Enjoying being with each other
Without going anywhere,
Being enough.

The tide,
the laugh
Giggle, sobbing
Pleasure
Leave our body reality
Trance of inter-dependence,
Inter-penetration,
Holy healing play dance,
And flows inward into the whole cosmos,
Changing everything,
Changing healing unseen, unknown

We leave the cave
With each other inside…
And our masks expand and soften.


“Kittee”, digital painting, 1999 by Frank Moore

CREATIVITY IS LIKE SHITTING

By Frank Moore, May 31, 2005

Creativity is like shitting.
Most people do it.
Everyone needs to do it….
More or less regularly.
Every shit is different.
There is nothing like a good shit!
Some people obsess on their shitting!
Some obsess on their own shit;
Others obsess on others’ shit,
Even buying it!
I just enjoy a good shit!
Oh shit,
I’ll let you in on a secret…
I play with shit!
Creativity is just playing.


“Toni”, by Frank Moore, digital painting, 2011

I HATE NICE PEOPLE

by Frank Moore, Thursday, April 11, 2002

i get worried if my words and images fit through veins clogged with fatty taboos of polite appropriate of comfortability.

i get worried…is the art that small that it fits through that pinhole of a hole…so small that nudes on the walls, words on telephone poles, any shift in the social power structure threatens the very reality fabric.

i’m too proud to admit the art poetry is that small. so my art becomes a 
roto-rooting balloon covered in razors tipped in draino acid, pushing pressuring uncomfortable unsocial grinding against the grain until the killer fatty clots of taboos burst out the other end and go down the drain like trouble.

i don’t really go after the hitlers, the mccarthys, the helms, or their 
brown shirts.

they are just limp-dicked power-junkies with swiss-cheese egos, each hole filled with inferiority. they are just moons with no power light of themselves, just reflecting fear.

no, i go after the nice people who never asked where the trains were going, boxcars filled with people. didn’t have to. only suspected, only heard rumors…after all, the general is a friend. never said, excuse me, i am a jew too, arab too, a jap too, a gay too, i’ve negro blood running in my body, aids too. i’m a commie who took home movies of our nude kids. so better put me on that train too. better put us all on that train. there ain’t no train big enough!

i go after the nice people who keep going to work after seeing their friends missing, after hearing rumors of blacklist and blackball. must write something about that subject to THE TIMES. he used to be such a pleasant fellow…but now he is a whining paranoid…not a sort to have to tea. he is like a wet messy fart. not in my backyard!

yes, i go after nice people. but my time in the belljar is about over. so i’ll leave you with this. what is happening in your backyard is what really matters. so be sure to weed!

“Seated Nude”, oil on canvas, 36” x 36”, 1981 by Frank Moore

Adobe Books Art Show, Jam and Let Me Be Frank Screening

From the poster:

The Art of Frank Moore & LaBash
The first ever showing of shaman performance artist Frank Moore’s erotic innocent primitive passionate digital art, alongside the funny/disturbing/mind-scrambling/reality-bending drawings of LaBash.
Sunday, Feb. 2 – Saturday Feb. 15, 2020
Hours
M-F 12-8pm
Sa-Su 11am-8pm

Let Me Be Frank video screening
On Valentine’s Day, the first ever live screening of episodes from the web video documentary series, Let Me Be Frank, based on the life and art of shaman, performance artist, writer, poet, painter, rock singer, director, TV show host, teacher and bon vivant, Frank Moore.
Come EARLY and bring your musical instruments for a music jam before the screening!
Friday, Feb. 14, 2020
5-6:30pm – MUSIC JAM
6:30-8pm – LET ME BE FRANK screening and Q&A

FREE!

Adobe Books
3130 24th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

Corey and Erika setting up the show.
Photo by Keith Wilson
Photo by Keith Wilson
Photo by Keith Wilson
Photo by Keith Wilson

MORE PHOTOS HERE AND HERE


See the art show (and setup) here:

About the jam and screening

by Erika Shaver-Nelson, Alexi Malenky and Corey Nicholl

When we arrived at Adobe for the event, we found that people had left comments and drawings in the notebook we had left in the gallery space.

“fuckin’ love this stuff!” “you inspire me profoundly” “many thoughts head full …” “whoa!” “WTF?! infathomable, navy?” “the world needs more FRANK MOORE for all of us to be sexually liberated!”

Heather said that the art show has been getting a lot of positive reactions, especially from young people who come into the shop. Heather and the other volunteers at Adobe Books create a very open feeling there, and it felt great to have the event there. She told us later that when we take down the art in a week, the next group is a bunch of young people who will be doing some sleepovers in the space, and writing their dreams on the walls …

We brought homemade popcorn (two kinds: buttered & curry), and orange spearmint water, and valentine’s chocolate … they were a big hit, devoured!

Michael Peppe was the first to arrive, and the first person who came for the jam. Only one other came to jam, one of the people we recognized from several of Frank’s later performances, including at Temescal. He brought a drum which he played, and sometimes took toy instruments and shook them inside the drum, etc.

But at first, it was just Peppe … he came back into the gallery and sat down at a keyboard and started playing … we three started jamming with him, and before long there was a couple who had not even come for the event, but were drawn back to the gallery space, and after checking out the art, they also joined the jam. It was really fun, and it felt/sounded like a Frank jam, felt primal, and Erika said that the feeling during the jam was “freedom”. As time went on, more people came in and joined the jam.

The Jam

Between the first two episodes, we were talking with Michael Peppe, and he said some amazing things about Frank …

“You have a bunch of things that you regret in your life, not necessarily that you regret doing, but regret not doing, but I was thinking watching the film that that’s one I totally do not regret, is hanging out with Frank Moore, and jumping into his thing, you know, going to performances, being in the performances, watching the videos, reading the text, and all his art … not one second of my life was wasted hanging out with Frank Moore.”
He remembered the first time he performed with Frank at UC Berkeley. “From that moment on, yeah, I absolutely do not regret any of that.”

He is such a once in a lifetime kind of person. Usually in art, you think well, wow, he was great, I wonder who the next guy’s gonna be. You know, who’s gonna follow up. There is no next Frank Moore. There is only one. There is only one, and that’s all you get. And I’m sure that there’s not going to be anyone quite as amazing and remarkable as him. The world has had plenty of time to come up with another one, and it hasn’t managed to do it, so … he’s it, he’s the only one.”

He also talked about the Outrageous Beauty Revue, which is when he first saw Frank at the Mabuhay in 1981. “No one had ever done that, and no one has done it since.” “Celebrating people for who they are, what they are, whatever they look like …” He was also really struck by the quotes from Frank at the end of the 1st episode, about faking it until you make it, and how Frank saw himself as beautiful. “And like he said, that’s magic. That’s what magic is. You know, that’s something to think about. That’s magic.”

Watching Let Me Be Frank with a live audience was amazing … it was the first time, after only having watched it together at home. Both the reactions, laughter, etc. and the silence really made you feel like people were taking a lot in from the episodes.

Alexi counted about 25 people at the screening. Among the people who came was a coworker from the health food store where Corey works, Kacey, and Erika’s coworker Megan and her boyfriend Josh. Megan was the last student who worked with Frank. Also, Keith Wilson came, the filmmaker who is doing his own documentary on Frank.

Let Me Be Frank screening

One of the first questions after the screening was if Frank had been an organizer for disabled people in the bay area community, or if his work drew other people with disabilities into his work. We talked about how he had participated in the protests in the early 80s at the Federal building in SF over the ADA, and also about the group that put on the OBR, and how it came together through Frank’s workshops, and that there were several people with disabilities that were part of the workshops and later formed deeper relationships, formed households together, etc.

We talked also about how Frank was challenging to the disability community in the seventies, because while they were advocating independence, hiring people to help you so that you could be “independent”, Frank was talking about having deep relationships with friends and lovers who would take care of your needs.

We also told the story of Frank showing Fairytales Can Come True at the CP Center.

Heather brought up what she had read in How To Handle An Anthropologist about Frank’s experience at the San Francisco Art Institute, and about not getting booked by gallery spaces and being embraced by other subcultures like the punk scene … and we ended up telling the story of The Lab cancelling Frank’s performances, and how the poetry community came out to perform with him on the street in front of the space. And then Peppe talked about how you can’t even count how many places have banned Frank! And how Frank didn’t care, he just thought it was funny!

A Japanese woman who Heather told us later had come specifically “for the Frank Moore event” told Erika that she had a friend who had been severely disabled, and gets very down in the dumps about what she can’t do anymore (she is an artist), and that she felt that Frank was really inspiring, and would be inspiring to her friend.

At the end of the night, after the second episode, she talked again about how Frank was really inspiring, especially how for so long, from such an early point, Frank had this idea of interdependence (instead of independence), and she was struck by his self-respect and his will to do his art, that was really admirable, and a lot of people could not do this, so she couldn’t understand how anyone could ever ban him! She also said he was “so cute! so lovable”

Afterward, a couple who had come to the event came up to us. Matt is someone who volunteers at Adobe, and is a musician who recently did a dissertation for his degree at Mills College where he helped create musical instruments for people with disabilities, that they could play and jam together with. He was really inspired by Frank, and had been thinking about doing something about Frank with his disabled students where he teaches at an Academy, but he said he will have to see what the administration of the school is open to.

Also after the screening, as we were packing up, Heather’s partner Kyle talked about the part of the OBR episode where Steve Hoffman was playing Joe Cocker. He was really impressed. He said it was “pure rock ‘n’ roll”, and that he have never seen anything quite like it.

When Peppe left, he asked us when is the next one!? He wants to be there.

Heather wants to do more screenings/jams, and suggested that perhaps the next one could be around Frank’s birthday!

From left to right: Heather, Corey, Erika and Alexi

MORE PHOTOS HERE


Watch the jam, screening and Q&A here:

You can watch the two episodes that were shown:

EPISODE 1: A Lucky Guy

EPISODE 12: Outrageous Beauty Revue

Art of Reshaping Reality

Abstract by Frank Moore, 1996

by Frank Moore
March 24, 1999

There are all kinds of art.
There is art that calms,
art that pacifies,
art that sells,
art that decorates,
art that entertains.

But what I am
committed to is
art as a battle,
an underground war
against fragmentation.
The battle is on all realities.

The controllers
have always tried
to fragment us.
Fragment us
from each other.
Imprison us
in islands of sex,
color,
religion,
politics,
classes,
labels,
etc.,
etc.,
etc.,
etc.,
etc.
they fragment
our inner worlds,
they blow
our individual realities apart,
and play the pieces
against one another.
They are us,
or a part of us.
They are the controllers,
the politicians,
the sexists,
the women’s libbers,
the pornographers,
the censors,
the moralists,
the church,
the media,
the businessmen,
educators,
the victims
and the powerful.

They are us.
They have divided us
from our power,
from our beauty,
from our lust for life
and pleasure.
They have divided us
from most of reality –
divided dying from living –
sex from living,
sex from pleasure.
We are kept in
boxes of fear,
of mistrust.
We are kept waiting –
kept waiting
to do what
we want –
waiting
for enough money,
enough schooling,
for everything to be right.
We are kept waiting
and protecting
and hiding
and suffering.

This is the time
to do battle
with the boxes.

As artists,
our tools
are magic,
our bodies,
taboos,
and dreams.

This kind of art
can be bubbles of childhood –
hidden places
where you can play and explore –
it is the kids’ under-the-covers world,
the playhouse,
the treehouse,
the cave,
behind the barn,
playing doctor,
cars at drive-ins
before going all the way,
Huck Finn’s raft,
tepees.
People are afraid
of this area of
lusty exploring
that they think
they have out-grown
— but they are sucked into it.

But this kind of art
can have a more
heavy-duty
magical side to it
that shocks,
offends,
and breaks new ground.
This side is what is locked in,
the subconscious,
the womb,
the underground,
hell/heaven,
pleasure/torture,
the coffin,
the grave,
birth/death/rebirth,
dream/nightmare,
the hidden world
of taboos.

Artists of this breed
need to be
warriors who are willing
to go into the areas of taboo,
willing to push
beyond where
it is comfortable
and safe
to explore
and build
a larger zone
of safeness.
They need to be
idealists,
willing to live ideals.

The Dance Without Dancers

“Falling in Love”, digital painting by Frank Moore, 2010

THE DANCE WITHOUT DANCERS
Frank Moore
2011

What we have here is
only the first smell of fresh magic.
Matter is hollow tubes
containing fibers
of packets of possibilities.
Matter is symbol,
is metaphor
containing possibilities.
These packets shape matter.
These packets, in turn,
are reshaped by
each body /object
they pass through.
We are affected
by the stars,
and the stars
are affected
by us.
We affect the Tarot cards
and the I Ching coins
we cast.
The physicists affect
the subatomic particles
they observe.

By reshaping
these inner packets,
the material reality is reshaped.

The inner rivers of possibilities
are two way on the linear level.
The magical effects are always
two way.
The light of the sun warms us;
but we affect the sun through
the same channel.

We have entered the level
of the dynamic web
of relationships
in which the individual
does not exist.
In place of the individual,
there appear points
of personal responsibility
in a dance.

It is not the sun that warms,
nor is it us who are warmed.
It is the dance of no dancers,
the dance of relationships
that warms,
and that is warmed.

Reality creation
is a dance.
We are the dancers.
But in truth,
it is a dance
without dancers.
If we really take
on personal responsibility
for the dance,
we surrender to the dance,
give up individual “control,”
give up individual linking
with the results.
By taking on the personal responsibility
for the dance,
we are the dance.
We melt with the dance.
We are only the dance.
We admit these facts.
It is not a question
of becoming,
but of remembering
and admitting.
It is a question
of being,
living,
dancing lustfully,
without controls
or limits
in responsibility.

The life dance
is beyond morals
or limits.
It joyfully digs
into the dance
to the juicy black core.

Is This Appropriate?

“Nude Stacy”, digital painting, 1996 by Frank Moore

By Frank Moore
February 2, 2003

When I cried out,
they said crying out
was not “appropriate behavior”.
I do not think appropriate behavior
is good.

Everything
that is not
appropriate behavior
makes me feel.

Don’t trust
Anyone
Who labels
Things
As not appropriate behavior!

Art,
Poetry,
Music,
Sex,
Love,
Belly laughs…
All outside of
Appropriate behavior.

That’s where I live
In freedom!